![]() "If the physician doesn't ask about it, you may not find out. They don't see it as an issue," Van Uum said of the case study he recently co-authored in the journal Postgraduate Medicine. Patients wouldn't think of mentioning it. ![]() The diagnosis? Licorice-induced hypertension. That was all the information doctors needed. Upon further questioning, doctors discovered the patient had recently started eating large amounts of black licorice jelly beans – about 50 a day – which he continued to eat while in hospital. His elevated blood pressure and hypokalemia (low potassium) led doctors to run a series of tests. Van Uum cited the case of a sweet-toothed 51-year-old patient who recently presented himself in the emergency room with complaints of abdominal pain for three days, plus a day of decreased appetite, vomiting and diarrhea. The ability to screen and manage such causes may spare patients from prolonged medical therapy and complications. ![]() Numerous secondary causes of hypertension exist and most are potentially reversible. Hypertension ( high blood pressure) is one of the most common problems encountered in the primary-care setting. The problems are compounded, he continued, because most Canadian physicians don't know to ask about it. Stan Van Uum, a professor in the divisions of Clinical Pharmacology and Endocrinology and Metabolism, warns that binge eating the popular confectionary can send your blood pressure soaring, as well as cause dramatically lower levels of potassium in the body, resulting in abnormal heart rhythms and even paralysis.
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